A Study On Chinese Kernel Work "水"

"Water", the source of life and being indispensable to human beings, deserves inevitable attentions in the academic study of core words. In the thesis, "water" refers to a semantic field, generally including any waters or juice (even its variations in different physical forms), as well as some related verbs and adjectives. To collect and sort out the words in the semantic field of "water" systematically and compare the rule of their semantic changes is not only of great significance for the in-depth research of the core word "water", but also provides a valuable data for the comparison of the various languages based on the semantic field of "water".The approaches of three level comparison of "semantic field-sub semantic field-word" and "lexical meaning comparing" are adopted in the research. In addition, the relevant theories from cognitive linguistics and typology are taken to explain the findings.The thesis is divided into 8 main chapters, and the main content is as following:Chapter 2 to Chapter 7 studies the semantic field of "water". The approach of "semantic field-sub semantic field-word" is adopted to investigate the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of words by collecting and classifying them and then discuss the universal semantic evolution rule of words by comparing the Sino-Tibetan languages and the other languages of the world.Specifically, chapter 2 classifies the words in the semantic field of "water" in the view of hyponymy. The general terms "water" and "liquid" are superordinates, and their subordinates could be classified into several sub semantic fields such as streams, flood, clear water, muddy water, water droplets, hot water and marinated water. Chapter 3 analyzes "water" in its different physical forms. It is classified into such sub-semantic fields as streams, water waves, water bubbles and water surface, and each of these sub semantic fields comprises a lot of words. Streams, for example, have various physical forms like source water, branch water, backflow water, swift water.Chapter 4 discusses "water" in its different places to trap and hold water such as ditches, ponds, pits, deep lake, inlets, streams, rivers, swamps, oceans. Chapter 5 discusses "water" at the table of dinner and its sub semantic fields are wine, juice, oil, beverages, tea, vinegar, cheese, sugar, vinegar, sauce, porridge. Chapter 6 discusses "water" in human body and its sub semantic fields are sweat, saliva, tears, snot, urine, semen, blood, bone marrow and various human mucus and etc. Chapter 7 discusses "water" in natural world, and rain, snow, frost, dew, gas, mud, paint are classified as its sub semantic fields.Chapter 8 and chapter 9 reveals the universal semantic change rule of words from the perspective of typology by the method of lexical meaning comparing with the background of the world languages. Water in natural world and water in human body are chosen as the objects of this part of research among its rich sub semantic fields with the purpose of proving that conversion between nouns and verbs and conversion between nouns and adjectives are the commonest forms of derivations.Chapter 8 studies the different forms of water in human bodies and the related collocated verbs. It is found that among the world languages, tears and to tear, runny nose and to run at the nose, breast milk and breast-feeding, saliva and to spit, urine and to urinate, sweat and to sweat, blood and to bleed are all of the relation of derivatives, and thus the conversion between nouns and verbs is most important rule in the semantic changes of words. Chapter 9 studies the different forms of water in natural world. It is pointed out that rain and to rain are related and that in many languages of the world rain could be extended to mean favor. Snow/ice/frost, on the one hand can derive the verb phrases such as to rain and to ice, and on the other hand, derive adjectives such as cold, indifferent and pure. Fog in most cases is related to be vague and dim, and it can also derives the meanings of be ignorant and confused.Innovations of the research are:(1) to research systematically, for the first time starting from the semantic field, by the approach of "semantic field-sub semantic field-word" and the method of lexical meanings comparing, the words in the semantic field of water, grouping them according to their closeness in meaning, analyzing their meanings to seek the rule of their semantic changes.(2) to study comprehensively, by the method of comparing lexical meanings, the semantic field of "water". The first six chapters is a form of "net-casting" study, comparing the words in all semantic fields and sub semantic fields to seek the universal rule of semantic changes. The last two chapters is a form of "net-drawing-in" study. Two research objects are chosen among all semantic fields of water and they are water in natural world and water in human body. It is concluded that, compared with the related expressions in other languages of the world, conversion between nouns and verbs and conversion between nouns and adjectives are most important derivatives. Finally, theories out of cognitive linguistics are applied to explain the semantic changes discussed in the above.